The collapse of a three-storey building in Punjab’s Mohali has claimed two lives, with rescuers pulling out the body of a man and a fatally injured woman from under the rubble during a multi-agency 23-hour rescue operation that concluded Sunday evening, officials said.
A magisterial inquiry has been ordered into the incident which, according to a preliminary report, occurred during alleged illegal digging in the adjacent plot that belongs to one of the owners of the building.
Drishti Verma, 20, from Himachal Pradesh, was rescued from the rubble in critical condition and was rushed to a hospital, where she succumbed to injuries on Saturday night, while the body of Abhishek Dhanwal, 29, was pulled out on Sunday.
Besides the two owners of the building, the contractor undertaking the digging work has also been booked, the officials said, adding strict action will be taken against anyone found responsible.
The building owners — Parwinder Singh and Gagandeep Singh — were booked at Sohana police station under Section 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) on Saturday night, SSP Deepak Pareek said.
A short video clip circulating on social media purportedly of the incident shows the building, which housed a gym and paying guest accommodations, tilting to one side before collapsing. The building also had a basement.
Viraj S Tidke, officiating deputy commissioner of Mohali, said that Sub Divisional Magistrate of Mohali Damandeep Kaur has been entrusted with the probe and asked to submit the report within three weeks.
“(Mohali) District administration completed the 23-hour-long constant rescue operation with the help of NDRF and Army as key players,” besides the police, municipal corporation and health department at Mohali (Sohana) building collapse site at 4:30 pm today, an official statement said.
Mohali Senior Superintendent of Police Deepak Pareek told reporters at the site on Sunday that as per preliminary investigations an owner of the building, which collapsed, had a plot of land adjacent to it on which digging work to construct a basement was on.
“However, no permission was taken and no agency concerned was informed about the unauthorised digging,” Pareek said.
He said that the accused will be nabbed soon.
Briefing the media after the completion of the rescue operation, Tidke along with other officials said that about 140 NDRF team members, 167 from the Army's 57 Engineers Regiment, over 300 from local police and the rest from allied departments were involved in the operation.
Leader of Opposition in Punjab Assembly Partap Singh Bajwa slammed the Mohali district administration over the incident.
If proper measures are not taken, "after a few months another building will collapse and this will continue. So accountability has to be fixed", Bajwa said.
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